Watercolours, decoupage and pyrography!

After so many weekends of entertaining guests at home and going out a lot, last weekend I decided to relax, read a book and do some crafts.
On Friday I went to Ikea. I needed some frames to put in my triptych of jelly fish my friend Ian sent me from England.

I loved them on his blog and wanted one but he sent me all three as he is such a kind and generous person!

Look how beautiful they look in the frames which will decorate the beach house of course.

Another reason I went to Ikea for was because I had booked the Decoupage Workshop organized by Ikea and the ladies from Ftiaxto Elina and Valia.
I have done very little decoupage so far and really wanted to try.
Here is what we made under the instructions and supervision of Valia and Elina.

Ikea offered the items we decoupaged and the napkins.

All in all it was an interesting workshop. I plan to go to more in future if they organize some.

You can see how to make the clock here.

 And then on Saturday I decided to put in use a lovely tool we had bought in a very reasonable price from Lidl months ago. The pyrography tool was great and I loved what I made.
I used some leftovers pieces of wood from the new shadow puppet stage hubby made.
I sanded them a bit to have an even surface and then using the pyrography tool with all the different edges I burnt out the patterns.
I really loved the results and plan to make more.
I have always been inspired by Geninne's and Alisa Burke's pyrography beauties. So here are mine.
Empire State Building

 The little wooden huts in Turku Finland at the Craft Village.

The Dandelion

Greece in summer.

Feathers

The owl

If you don't feel like making any pyrography pieces I have a friend Dimitra who makes really beautiful ones on her Decorasylum etsy shop. Have a look!

(photo taken from Decorasylum etsy shop)
( I have in no way been compensated by the shops, firms, blogs mentioned in this blogpost.This is not an advertising blogpost.)

A great day at Xeirotexnika

Xeirotexnika is an art and craft exhibition with workshops that takes place every year in Athens. This year it was also organised in Thessaloniki.It was this weekend 11th and 12th of October.

Xeirotexnika is organized by two very talented ladies Elina and Valia who were pioneers in this country in the craft world. They started some years ago with a blog about crafting called ftiaxto which evolved into a site with an e-shop. They taught us through tutorials how to make things and I really learnt a lot from them.So I was really very happy to meet them in person at the exhibition and take a photo with them.

I went early on the first day.

This funny little car decorated with crafts was outside the exhibition.

This beautiful huge cross stitch board was in the entrance.

 I went early in order to manage to get enrolled in the needle weaving workshop and I am glad I was one of the ten people who managed to get in! For only 5 euros you had a two hour workshop to learn how to make a mini needle weaved piece of jewelry and it was great!

Our teacher Natassa Fokianidou aka Faraona was great in teaching us all one by one and I hope to finish my piece soon and show you.

Here are a couple of photos of what we did.

 You will soon see the finished piece.

After the workshop it was high time to visit the exhibition. My photos are not very good though.

First I saw this quilting exhibition. Quilting is not very popular in Greece yet but that group here is trying and they have made some really beautiful things.

 They made this fantastic group quilt with the theme of Greece.

 And here are quilts made by people who have fallen victims of Human Trafficking.

 Lots of sellers from around the country were selling their supplies.
I was so eagerly looking around to get ideas and find products that might interest me, that I didn't take too many photos.
There was lots of wool!

There was silk!

There were exhibits to give you ideas.Like this from 2objectrepair who take old furniture and turn them into something new.

And beautiful little nooks.

There was lots to see and to choose from!

 I really loved the idea of making your own book by this couple.(photo from their site)

But didn't take photos of every seller of course.

I did a little bit of shopping too but as I am on a tight budget I only bought a couple of things from two shops fiaxto.gr and crafts and paper.

I bought ModPodge from the former and the felting needles too. And I bought those lovely felt pre cut patterns for my crafting from the latter.

All in all it was a great crafting day!